


Snow Forts

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Arranged Marriage, First Kiss, HSAU, Highschool AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 15:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean are in yet another high school as their dad goes and looks for a job in the surrounding community. On the first day Dean gets in a fight with the strange and cold Castiel Novak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snow Forts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [quiddative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiddative/gifts).



> I hope you have an awesome holiday! This is my first time posting on AO3, god I hope I got the formatting right.

It was Dean’s first time at a private school and (having almost finished his first day) he decided his opinion of them would remain exactly the same. They were stuck up and rude and full of rules and the occasional hot chick in a plaid skirt.  
Dean loved it.  
Rules were made to be broken after all, and all he would have to do to maintain a ‘bad-boy’ persona here would be talk back to the teachers a few times and maybe not put his recycling in the right bin. Dean Winchester was going to rock Edlund High, and there wasn’t a thing upper management could do about it.  
Too bad he didn’t factor in what a single, cold-hearted student could.  
~~**~*~**~~  
Dean turned off the shower with an ambiguously angry noise. He stood and let his over-heated body steam for a moment. He watched the vapour rise from the red skin passively and took a deep breath through his nose, trying not to let his mind drift back to the fight he got into this gym period.  
He had been standing with Ash on the chilly soccer field shivering in tall socks and shorts made of some stupid shiny fabric that held absolutely no heat. He and Ash were talking to each other and Dean was getting a run down on all the students in the class.  
“That’s Jo. Touch her and I castrate you, she’s like a sister to me.”  
Dean huffed and watched the crystalized moisture float into the air as he crossed both his arms and Jo off his ‘to-do’ list.  
“That kid there,” Ash gestures to a gangly kid with a big nose and bulging eyes, “That’s Garth. You get used to him.”  
The kid was currently hugging a younger student. Dean didn’t particularly want to get used to that, he could absolutely do without hugging. The last time Dean had been hugged… Well it had technically been only a few days before, on the Monday when John said he needed to pack up and get out of town to find a way to earn a quick buck. He had left Dean and Sam waving to him and watching him drive off into the crisp gray morning. Sammy had cried a little, but since he was nearly fourteen now Dean made sure not to mention it. He had slung an arm around his little brothers shaking shoulders. Sam had wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist and sniffled into his shoulder for all of two minutes before Dean had told him to buck up and shut the door, because he was freezing his balls off.  
If you didn’t count Sam, it had been months since his last hug.  
And god was he okay with that.  
“And that,” Ash pointed to probably the most attractive male Dean had ever seen, “Is the Ice King. Or Castiel Novak, alternately. Do us all a favour and don’t try to talk to him.” Ash shook his head, messy, slightly greasy hair swinging out in front of his face.  
“Why?” Dean asked, watching the teenager’s white running shoes scuff across the mud and dirt field. His eyes traveled slowly up the pale calves and strong thighs, resting for a moment on the slender hips before they traced their way up to the guys face. And wow. What a face.  
The lips were what he noticed first, chapped and pink but full and Dean couldn’t help but wonder what they would feel like brushing against his neck or inner thigh. Then he saw the hair, and then the eyes and the strangely perfect nose and… Wow that was just a very appealing person his age.  
And now Ash probably thought he was in big gay love with this guy because he was looking for so long. With some effort he ripped his gaze away from ‘Castiel’ (he could have sworn there was an audible tearing noise) and met Ash’s eyes again.  
“What’s wrong with him?” He asked as Castiel jumped and caught a pass from some guy Ash hadn’t told him about.  
“Nothing. He’s perfect. That’s the problem.”  
Dean made a humming noise and turned back to look at Castiel, who was running down the frozen field in tall socks with the football clutched tightly in his hands.  
Dean ignored the biting twisting cold worming its way into his body and gritted his teeth a little as a giant gust of wind flew by, carrying with it leaves and one or two empty juice boxes.  
“How so?” It was almost too cold to waste warm breath on talking, but damn if he wasn’t curious.  
“Oh you know, raised in a super-rich, super-religious family, gets perfect in all his classes, and has no social life. I swear to god, this dude hasn’t even had a single sip of beer in his life, let alone hung out with some dudes and got plastered.”  
Dean could see how it didn’t really endear him to any of his classmates, but he still couldn’t quite figure out why he wasn’t permitted to talk to the guy.  
“Mr. Winchester! Mr. Gamble! Are you keeping that bench comfortably toasty or are you going to come and join the game?”  
The coach was haggard and skinny, wrinkles emanating from his every crevice. He wore a white t-shirt that may or may not have been stained with blood. From what Dean had, seen of him he wouldn’t put it past the downright evil looking man.  
Nobody knew his last name, everyone just called him Alistair. He scared the pants off Dean, so naturally he provoked him in every way he could think of.  
“No thanks Alistair, I think the bench is getting hypothermia, I should really stay with it in its time of need!”  
Alistair’s head whipped around and fixed Dean with the most bone-chilling glare he’d ever seen, “One more quip like that, Dean, and I’ll send you ‘round the field ten times.”  
He had a strange lit to his voice that set Dean shivering and standing without any conscious decision to do so crossing his mind.  
And then he had to play football with a bunch of catholic boys. They weren’t bad, but he was better.  
He had weaved through them, slipping under outstretched arms, twisting to avoid stocky bodies blocking his way, leaping and sliding and twisting, listening to the frosty grass crunch beneath his feet and his breath coming in puffs out of him.  
Until he was tripped and fell on his ass in a very impressive way.  
He hadn’t tripped on an obnoxious clump of grass, or a bit of frozen mud, or even on his own shoelaces. No, as he rolled onto his back and sat up he saw the offender. It was Castiel.  
“What the fuck dude!” He yelled, jumping to his feet, chill forgotten, a slight distraction compared to the fire in his veins.  
Then the asshole smirked and shrugged a little.  
Seriously, who does that shit?  
So, Dean, knowing he needed to get his reputation out and in the public sooner rather than later stalked up so he was nose to nose with Castiel. His fingers tingled with the fresh pumping of blood and the shot of adrenaline the anger lent him.  
“Apologize. Now. Or I’ll make you regret it.”  
Castiel huffed a warm breath into Dean’s personal space, having the gall to look bored with Dean’s simple threat. “Will you now.” The sarcasm lay heavy on his voice and stretched, languid, like a smug cat after filling its belly.  
Wow was that enough to set Dean off.  
And by set Dean off he meant start beating the crap out of this Castiel guy. Or trying too.  
It turned out they were pretty evenly matched, if not in strength, talent wise they were level. Castiel may have been smaller and less muscular but damn was he fast, darting and dodging Dean’s various punches, ducking into Dean’s unprotected areas and delivering quick, jabbing punches. Dean ploughed on like a relentless bulldozer, pushing Cas further and further, using more of his brute strength than any fancy foot work. It surprised him how into a rhythm they were settling, punch dodge, right hook, shin kick-  
And then it started getting fancy. Dean dodged two roundhouses (which what the actual fuck who knew how to roundhouse kick properly anymore) and a strange move that looked like the guy had lifted it out of Fight Club that involved sweeping the legs out from under your opponent.  
Which totally should not have worked, but left Dean gasping for air on his back anyway. Castiel straddling his hips and drawing back his fist for a good ol’ right hook in the eye.  
Dean waited until Castiel drew back far enough that his center of balance was awkwardly unbalanced and flipped their positions, pinning him to the ground with a wicked grin and his fingers tight as metal braces wrapped around Castiel’s thin wrists. He pushes them down into the cold, chewed up mud with an easy smirk. “Careful there, Ice Prince. Don’t want to get over confident.”  
And then he got punched in the face.  
Castiel was slipperier than a wet fish, and twice as desperate.  
Alistair had broken up the tussle then and forced them to run twenty laps. Class ended for the day about six laps in and everyone went home except the two unfortunate fighters and their hard-ass coach.  
After the painful run Dean went to the change rooms and showered under hot water until all the aches and pains went away. One thing he did not count on was for Castiel to follow him into the room.  
And here he was now, alone in the room with a presumptuous, pompous asshole standing in only a towel and shivering a little as he was pinned to the lockers by Castiel’s stare.  
“Well,” Dean demanded, “We going to continue this fight or not? Because all I want to do right now is dry my hair.”  
Castiel said nothing. At all. It was actually fucking creepy. So when he reached into his backpack and pulled out his lunchbag Dean was understandably concerned that he might have some form of weapon in the thing and was planning on murdering him. Dean raised an eyebrow, doing his best to act cocky. “What are you doing?”  
“Shut up.” Was the only answer he got as the weirdo reached into the silver cloth bag and withdrew an icepack, meant to keep food from getting all gross and sweaty while school went on. Oh great, Dean groaned internally, bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument. Castiel thrust it out to him, not quite meeting his eyes for the first time since Dean had met him.  
“What’s this for?”  
“It’s a… Peace offering of sorts.” Castiel said, looking up a little bashfully. And seriously, bashful? That was not anything like the guy Dean had just engaged in hand to hand combat with. “I want to apologize for what happened on the field. It was an overreaction… I think you will understand when I say that I need to keep my image up.”  
The thing was, as much as Dean wanted to protest, it was true. Almost everything he did was for the impressions it made on other people, especially Sam.  
“Well how about, when we’re alone, we don’t worry about our images?”  
And from that point on they were friends. It was a strange way to start a friendship, but all the best ones do.  
*~*~~*~*  
For four months it stretched out like that- easy, fun, one hundred percent them. They kept it under wraps at school, which was hard. But it was very much worth it.  
They relaxed around each other completely. They agreed to tell each other almost everything that was on their minds.  
When Dean told Cas about loving burgers, Castiel lit up and confided in Dean that he loved them too. After that they always went to tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants and ate bacon cheeseburgers with French fries smothered in gravy.  
It was over one of these meals that Cas told Dean the truth about his ‘Ice Prince’ demeanour. It came from being raised with so many other siblings with no mother and a father that was almost always out of town. His brother, Raphael, had told him to act cold and distant to the other children and keep his head down and get good grades.  
So Castiel did. And the other students hated him for it.  
Dean shared his story of absent fathers and basically raising his own sibling as well. They bonded even further after that and they became basically inseparable to the point where they agreed to hang out in school together.  
The first time Castiel came and ate lunch at Dean’s table it had been huge news. The school paper even ran a small article on it, demanding to know if the ‘Ice Prince’s heart was being warmed by friendship’ which was absolutely as gay as it sounded and Dean resented every word of it.  
Four months flew by, September all the way up to January.  
And Dean found himself head over heels in love with his best friend.  
Somewhere nestled in amongst the movie nights, dinners out, sleepovers, and childish pillow forts his heart started to beat faster. His body melted every time a broad smile stretched across Castiel’s face.  
And when Castiel told him about his brothers being abusive Dean saw red.  
Bright, boiling, seething red.  
“Have they hit you Cas?” He demanded, standing up from the bed, “What have they done?” He’s standing in Castiel’s space now, practically nose to nose with him. Cas stands up from the chair he normally occupies in Dean’s room and grabs Dean’s shoulders, squeezing them a little.  
“Dean, calm down… You aren’t being rational.” His voice was low and soothing, normally that tone made Dean want to curl into bed beside him and do things that were absolutely not snuggling because snuggling is gay and Dean is not. He’s just in love with a man. There is a huge difference.  
And then all of his thoughts screeched comically to a stop as Castiel pulled him in close and hugged him. Dean didn’t hesitate a beat as he wrapped his arms around his friend, even though he knew he should be acting less eager, but when he felt Castiel melt to his every curve and angle he couldn’t help himself.  
Just this one time, he would indulge.  
The hand in the small of Castiel’s back clenched the thin, blue cotton shirt he wore and he felt Cas burrow into Dean’s neck, pushing a little closer.  
This wasn’t a friendly hug. This was a fucking lover’s embrace, and Dean wasn’t sure if he should rejoice or cry. Because he was getting a taste of something he could never have, and that alone made him want to draw Castiel all the closer but at the same time push him away.  
Cas was so warm Dean could feel it in his own chest.  
Dean was a mess of confusion, contradictions and burning, aching, need.  
Cas pushed even closer to Dean, though there was hardly any part of them not touching at this point, and took the choice away from Dean.  
He leaned down and whispered into the pale curve of Castiel’s ear, “If they hurt you again, come over. Knock on my window okay?”  
Castiel took a deep breath in through his nose and nodded, hands bunching in the front of Dean’s shirt.  
“Okay.” He whispered hoarsely, lips and lashes brushing against Dean’s thin skin.  
“Good.” Dean pushed his nose into Cas’ thick hair and held him tight.  
The only reason he let go was because Sam barged in at that moment and disrupted their little slice of quiet.  
**~~*~~**  
It was June. A warm last day of school, with birds singing loudly and sweetly, sun pounding down on kids stupid enough to wear black in Kansas in the summer and everything smelt vaguely of sweat and relief.  
It was prom tonight, and Dean was going absolutely insane.  
He spent the day in a frenzy and he wasn’t sure why, he wasn’t even going to prom until three days ago when Castiel asked if he was.  
Okay, so he did have a reason. His best friend/love interest may have asked him on a date to prom just like all the stupid teen dramas Sammy watched. If he was being really and truly honest, he wouldn’t give a flying shit if his high school experience ended the same way as the star female leads did. Being swept off his feet by the best friend he had loved the whole time sounded like a pretty stellar ending to him.  
He came home from school and found Sam, his annoying perfect stupid little brother, crying on the couch.  
He dumped his backpack on the stinky motel carpet and walked over to Sam, plopping down on the musty smelling motel furniture. He made sure their knees were touching and waited until Sam could breathe easier again.  
“What’s up Sammy?” He kept his tone low and even, resisting the urge to reach over and rake a hand through the kids’ crazy mop of hair, knowing it would only make him feel younger.  
“Dad just called.” He sniffed out, Dean could feel his throat tighten in response. This was not going to end well, “He says we need to be packed for tomorrow morning.”  
Dean was quiet as he let Sam’s words sink in. They were leaving. Again. He wasn’t that surprised really, he had just been fostering a soft hope that maybe, this time, they could stay.  
The ten month stretch they got was longer than most stops Dad made, and he really should be happy with that but the one thing he couldn’t force out of his mind was Castiel.  
He had to see him. Tell him what was happening.  
But Sam came first, he always had.  
So Dean sat and talked his little brother through his half melt down half panic attack and he learned about a pretty girl named Jess, with big blue eyes, a loud mouth, and a quick wit. He knew the signs as well as any doctor and he could tell Sam was head over heels in love. So he shared his own one sided love story in a soft voice, pretending to make Sam drag it out of him just to see the kid smile.  
It was hard to tell him at first but soon the words fell from his lips like running paint and formed a picture of the last few months.  
Sam was quick to tell him that it was completely obvious that they were both head over heels for each other and that Dean was not a very talented wordsmith and that he should just quit talking while he was ahead.  
Dean had done his best not to act too interested when he asked what made Sam think it was mutual and even though Sam could see right through him he didn’t taunt him. “Are you kidding me? He follows you everywhere with this look of pure adoration on his face. He ignored his brother’s demands so he could spend more time with you at lunch. I think he steals your shirts dude.”  
Dean dragged him into a headlock and the wrestled for a while, getting out their pent up feelings.  
Then they sat and talked for a few hours, Deans mind flitting anxiously back to Castiel every once and a while.  
Then Sam sat up a little straighter, his hands making patterns in the carpet, “Okay, Dean. I need to tell you... I think… I think I’m going to move in with Bobby.”  
To say Dean was shocked was a bit of an overstatement. Bobby lived just outside of town and had given Dean a job over the school year. Sam went there after school so he wouldn’t be home alone and Bobby sort of adopted the kid.  
Sam had smiled a lot there.  
“Have you talked to Bobby about this?”  
Sam nodded, playing with a bit of string he found lodged in the fibers.  
“Then I think that’s a really good idea.”  
“Really?” When Sam met his gaze his eyes were shining.  
“Yeah kiddo. I do. Do you need some help packing or do you want to tell dad?”  
God he wanted to take the fall for Sam, stop the fight he knew was coming, but Sam needed to tell their father himself, otherwise it would have lasting impact.  
“I think I’ll call dad. And Dean, for god’s sake, go talk to Castiel. I know your itching to tell him.”  
Dean nodded, a little relieved. He stood up, muttering about kid brothers who didn’t know their place and kissed him on his forehead. “Don’t cause any bloodshed, got it?”  
“Yes, Dean.” Sam said with an eye roll. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”  
*~~**~~*  
Dean burst through the doors of the resturant panting a little. Cas had texted him directions when he told him it was an emergancy.  
It has a high celing with arching rafters, warm light cascaded from various chandaliers and landed on the plush, burgandy carpeting. The chairs had tall, swooping backs made of mahogany wood carved with a delicate hand that made it obvious someone had a lot of money riding on them.  
He cast his eyes around the room, searching for Cas like it was the most important thing in the world. And right now it sort of was.  
And then he spots him and he’s running and grabbing him by the lapels of his tux and jerking him close. He’s this close to kissing him. Should he? Should he go for it?  
He can’t focus on anything else other than his friends face. There is noise and colour swirling around him but the only sharp, clear thing was Castiel. Bold and pale and blue and white and safe and warm and fuck it. He’s going to do it.  
And then he’s kissing him slow and steady and cradling his face like he’s holding the most precious thing. And in that moment he is.  
Castiel’s lips moved under his, returning the soft press. It’s warm and dry and somehow every bit of Dean is screaming that he’s home. His mind is flitting from thought to thought, like an errant butterfly or something equally as girly and he wants everything to stop but the kissing and the pounding of their hearts and the feel of his fingernails dragging across rough stubble. Cas leans closer, presses into him as far as he can without breaking the kiss. His hands are sliding up Dean’s neck and where the warm press of skin passes in a fluid motion it gives Dean goosebumps. Horrid unbearable goosebumps. And he’s itching somewhere in his stomach and it’s weird as shit but almost in a pleasant way and he keeps kissing Cas.  
And then Cas is pulled back, the look on his face an almost comical mix of half registered pleasure and shock.  
And there is a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. A hand with perfectly manicured nails. And a ring. On her ring finger. With a diamond set in it.  
Dean tries to not jump to any conclusions but when the hand becomes two arms wrapping in an embrace around Cas’ neck and a sugary-sweet-sends-shivers-down-your-spine voice drawls out, “Castiel, Sweetheart. Who is this? And uhm… Why where you kissing him?”  
Dean’s eyes rise slowly and lock with the womans’. She wears too much eye makeup, and her lipstick is bright red. She has a coy smirk tasting the edges of her lips and two perfectly plucked eyebrows.  
Dean hates her on sight.  
“Cas… who is this?”  
Cas is glancing between the two of them, flustered and blushing and when his eyes settle on Dean they are sad. Damp and just as blue as they were when Dean kissed him. “Dean I’ve been meaning to tell you…”  
“Cas.” His voice and heart break in the same instant as Cas reaches up and cradles the womans’ ringed hand in his own. Dean sees a bright glint of gold and it pierces him through the heart. “No way…”  
Dean shuts his eyes as he listens to Cas try to form excuses.  
“How long have you been keeping this from me?” He asks, voice a little harder and to the point. He could feel his happiness draining out through his fingertips.  
Castiel stops babbling and bites his lip. “I… since the very beginning.”  
Dean forces himself to meet Castiel’s eyes, “You’ve been engaged this whole time. The entire time I’ve been your friend.”  
Castiel made a soft, broken sound that felt like a bullet shattering Dean completely. “No Castiel.” He growled, his full name sounding strange and harsh in his mouth. “You don’t get to be upset about this. You kept this from me. You must have known how I felt about you. You must have seen the way I look at you! My little brother did and he’s fourteen for god’s sake!”  
Deans fists clenched and he forced himself to stop shouting. The restaurant was crowded with curious faces, some of which he recognized from school, “I came to tell you I’m leaving. My dad’s coming back for us tomorrow morning. I wanted to tell you how I felt before I left.” Dean shut his eyes and dragged a deep breath in before opening them again, it was a struggle to look into Castiel’s eyes and see the pain there. “And I’m still going to do that. Cas, I love you. In that gay stupid way that everyone around us thinks we feel for each other.” His lips tightened and he told himself he wasn’t fucking going to cry here. “So bye, Castiel.”  
Then he spun on his heel and walked out.  
And waited outside the restaurant for ten entire minutes hoping and praying that Cas would follow him out.  
He waited two more and then left, world snapping into smaller and smaller pieces with each step he took.  
*~*~~*~*  
Dean looks up at the celling, forcing the tears down. He’s all packed up and staring at the clock as moments tick by like hours. He wants to cry, so badly. But if Sammy wakes up and sees him a mess he would blame himself. And Dean cannot have that because no matter how much he loves Castiel his brother is family and if it would make Sam upset he can deal with it on his own.  
He played with the sheets on his bed. They were blue. Of course they were fucking blue, he slammed his eyes shut and tried to stop thinking about how early it was and how thirsty he felt and how pressure was closing in on him from all sides and he felt completely and totally alone in the world.  
Until he heard the muted, sharp rap of knuckles on glass. It was the pattern Cas always used and he took a deep breath and considered closing the curtains.  
“Dean you are awake. I know it. Let me in.” Cas’ voice was demanding and slightly muffled by the pane of glass separating them. Dean grumbled as he rose to unlock the stupid window.  
“Why are you here Cas.” He asked as soon as he wrenched it open, summer night air rolling into his room, the lilac bush outside making the air heavy with its fragrance. Dean could smell the sharp hints of a full moon and starlight on the warm breeze.  
Cas tumbled into his room, as ungraceful at it as he had ever been and threw a large duffle bag on the ground.  
Dean raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms and determined to not forgive Cas.  
“I lied to you by omitting the truth and I’m sorry.” Dean leaned back on his leg, unimpressed. Cas hurried on, rubbing the back of his neck, “I need to tell you that your feelings are mutual, Dean. And that I have been in an arranged marriage with Meg since we were four. It was never my choice and I could never feel about her the way I feel about you.”  
“So what’s with the bag?”  
“We are leaving. Together. Sam texted me about how he is going to live with Bobby. I’ve already contacted Bobby about getting a car from him for cheap. He wouldn’t hear of it, of course and he’s giving you that car… the… sixty-eight Impala?”  
“Sixty-seven,” Dean corrected, in a state of shock, “But wait, what do you mean leave? Where will we go?”  
Cas grinned and stepped closer to him, “Anywhere we want. But I had my cousin Gabriel’s house in mind.”  
Castiel had told him about Gabriel before. The super successful candy maker had exploded on the sweets scene and now lived in a veritable mansion. Dean opened his mouth to ask a question and Castiel interrupted him again.  
“Yes, I’ve already asked him. Now go say goodbye to your brother so we can leave early tomorrow morning.”  
“You’re bossy today.” Dean said, pulling on his thin t-shirt so he wasn’t just wearing his black boxer briefs. He hoped he knew what would be occupying them until morning and made sure to grab a sock on the way out of his room.  
“You like it,” Came the lightning fast response.  
And Dean had to say he kinda did.


End file.
